Culture and Enrichment

The Culture and Enrichment Impact Committee provides volunteer opportunities that promote learning, awareness, exploration and discovery for adults, children and families.

Children’s Museum of Houston

While spending the night at the museum, Overnight Adventures volunteers act as role models for young girls by participating in craft projects, exploring museum exhibits, and cultivating an interest in nutrition and health. Family Learning Night volunteers help children ignite a lifelong passion for learning while participating in various activities during the museum’s free admission nights.

The Health Museum

Volunteers provide Brownies and Girl Scouts with a special visit to the Health Museum. Volunteers spend the night at the museum assisting museum staff in carrying out activities focused on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) for the girls attending the overnights.

Holocaust Museum Houston

Volunteers provide educational two-hour tours to groups of middle and high school students. These tours engage students in critical thinking of fairness, justice, individual identity, peer pressure, conformity and self-reflection. Volunteers also greet museum guests while working the information desk on weekdays and weekends.

Houston Arboretum & Nature Center

The Discovery Room, located within the Nature Center, serves to welcome the unfamiliar into the forest and wetlands of Houston by teaching visitors how to use their senses to observe and experience the Arboretum. The Discovery Room contains hands-on exhibits like the Learning Tree Challenge and the Tree Habitat Expert Board. Microscopes aid patrons in interpreting the habitats at the Arboretum. This opportunity allows volunteers to act as facilitators for visitors demonstrating tools such as the Discovery Boxes and Field Guides which help visitors find answers to their nature questions. Volunteers may also engage in conservation projects with the team that meets weekly throughout the year, weather permitting.

Houston Museum of Natural Science

Volunteers introduce children to the wonders of science by conducting tours of the museum to fourth grade Houston Independent School District students, making classroom presentations to first and second grade students through the Outreach Box Docent program and participating in the Touchcart Docent project that introduces children, four to 10 years old, to the world of science.

Houston Zoo

Volunteers greet and guide children to different areas within the Zoo’s Naturally Wild Swap Shop, field basic questions from the children, and polish and prepare artifacts for use and trade in the shop.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Volunteers enjoy Fine Arts à la Carte, a flexible placement that introduces children, families and adult visitors to the world of art through interactive, hands-on activities and special events, such as Picture Books Summer Art Camp and Bayou Bend Family Days.

Education and Mentorship

The Education and Mentorship Impact Committee provides volunteer opportunities supporting children through mentoring relationships, as well as children with health issues.

AIDS Foundation Houston, Inc.

Volunteers provide educational and emotional support to low-income children living with HIV/AIDS through a traditional camp experience and provide them with a much needed reprieve from the day-to-day realities of living with a chronic disease. Volunteers serve as counselors at the weeklong Camp Hope, a camp for children ages seven to 15 who are impacted by HIV or AIDS.

Camp Rainbow – American Diabetes Association

Volunteers participate as camp counselors in a one-week summer day camp for children with diabetes and their siblings. League members prepare craft materials to be used during camp, as well as participate in all camp activities, including swimming, fishing, horseback riding, and arts and crafts.

ChinquaPals – Chinquapin Preparatory School

Volunteers serve as mentors to seventh grade girls at Chinquapin Preparatory School by communicating through written correspondence and a book club. They also prepare welcome packages for an initial meet and greet event and exam care packages prior to the students’ December and May exams. The volunteers have lunch on campus with the students several times throughout the year, as well as host an Etiquette Dinner for the girls in the Junior League Tea Room.

DePelchin Children’s Center

Volunteers interact with children at DePelchin’s Richmond/Sugar Land location in a variety of events on Saturdays throughout the year, including, but not limited to, Pizza/Movie Night, Career Day, Etiquette Class and special field trips. This placement provides a safe, nurturing and esteem-building environment aiming to strengthen the lives of children.

Pen Pals

Volunteers serve as Pen Pals to students in four Houston Independent School District Title I schools served by the SuperKids Pediatric Mobile Clinic. The program emphasizes reading, writing and vocabulary skills through letter writing. It also exposes the students to new experiences, such as Pen Pals Days and Pen Pals Celebration Day. Pen Pals Days present opportunities for the volunteers and students to reinforce the pen pal relationship through personal visits.

Picture Pals – The Westview School

Volunteers serve as pen pals to children with Autism Spectrum Disorders at The Westview School through a modified letter writing program enhanced by the addition of pictures. Three Picture Pals Days are scheduled for volunteers to meet and visit with their students which help students practice building relationships in a social setting. Additionally, volunteers compile a portfolio of letters and artwork exchanged throughout the year that is presented to each student at the end of the year Artists’ Reception.

ROAR (Reach Out and Read)

Volunteers implement the agency’s goal of making literacy promotion a standard part of pediatric care by reading aloud to children in the waiting rooms at five Texas Children’s Pediatrics clinic locations: Corinthian Pointe, Gulfgate, Gulfton, Ripley House and Westchase.

Star of Hope

Teams of volunteers work at the Women and Family Emergency Shelter mentoring, tutoring and assisting the children in various cooperative learning centers. The program focuses on social and personal growth, as well as academic development designed to meet the special needs of the shelter’s homeless, at-risk children. Volunteers also write notes of encouragement to the Star of Hope clients.

Family Support

The Family Support Impact Committee provides volunteer opportunities emphasizing basic needs, family cohesiveness and supporting those who have been neglected or abused.

BEAR . . . BE A Resource for CPS Kids

Volunteers staff Child Protective Services (CPS) emergency supply rooms at the various CPS locations located in Harris County. They also assist caseworkers in acquiring clothing, toys and other necessities for children who have been removed from their homes.

Bo’s Place

Volunteers will serve as Kitchen/Support volunteers, offering support to grieving families by setting up the potluck style meal held before grief support sessions, preparing leftover food for families to take home and tidying the kitchen. Kitchen/Support volunteers also assist with the preparation of activities used in the grief support groups and assist with the Pi Beta Phi Lending Library.

Casa de Esperanza de los Niños

Volunteers help break the destructive cycle of child abuse by serving as positive role models for children who have been abused, neglected or affected by HIV. Depending on the needs of the specific house, volunteers read to children, play games, assist with tutoring of special needs children, soothe and feed infants, and work on arts and crafts projects.

Child Advocates, Inc.

Volunteers prepare Life Books for children in foster care to record pictures and details of their lives. Volunteers also work a variety of Child Advocates’ Special Projects events throughout the year, including the annual Houston Children’s Festival and hosting kid’s birthday parties.

Houston Area Women’s Center

Volunteers provide a safe and nurturing environment for children in the Kids’ Night Out program while their mothers receive counseling. Additional evening volunteers mentor and care for children between the ages of five and 14 years while their mothers attend counseling at the HAWC Shelter.

Kids’ Meals

Volunteers meet at Kid’s Meals Garden Oaks on Monday and Wednesday nights to prepare 1,200 nutritious sack lunches each night for underserved children. Volunteers also participate in delivery sessions in the community.

Health and Well-Being

The Health and Well-Being Impact Committee provides volunteer opportunities focusing on providing comfort, companionship, and emotional and social support to people of all ages.

Baylor Teen Health Clinic

Volunteers support new teen mothers by visiting their bedside and delivering prepared information regarding childcare, parenting, family planning and nutrition. Phone Outreach volunteers are paired with newly pregnant teen moms and/or existing teen moms who need additional support and encouragement. These volunteers call the teen mothers weekly throughout the year.

Memorial Hermann – Texas Medical Center

Volunteers provide emotional and social support for patients and families at Memorial Hermann. They serve in a wide variety of positions, including Play Pals, NICU or Pedi-ER waiting rooms, information desk attendants and patient/visitor escorts. At Camp Janus, volunteers serve as counselors providing a traditional summer camp experience for pediatric burn patients ages five to 18.

Ronald McDonald House Houston

Volunteers assist with activities, provide fellowship and stress relief and serve dinner delivered from the Junior League Tea Room to families with seriously ill children at Holcombe House. Volunteers also provide respite and comfort to parents and guests of patients in satellite locations of Ronald McDonald House, located in Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital, Texas Children’s Hospital and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Sheltering Arms Senior Services

Through the Telephone Reassurance program, volunteers make daily safety telephone calls providing much-needed companionship to older adults who live alone.

Texas Children’s Hospital

Provisional class members engage in play therapy with patients and their siblings in the Abercrombie Playroom, Library, Cancer Center Clinic, the Renal Center, and Texas Children’s Hospital Pavilion for Women NICU Sibling Playroom. Volunteers also work in Radio Lollipop, present puppet shows, and prepare and make crafts and dolls to educate and comfort young patients. Volunteers have the opportunity to assist with The Periwinkle Foundation’s Making A Mark program, which provides artistic and creative writing opportunities for children undergoing treatment at Texas Children’s Cancer Center.

Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus

Volunteers greet and assist patients, visitors and staff. Volunteers also work in the Emergency Center assisting staff by keeping the exam rooms supplied and neat, transferring patients to designated areas, and providing a personal touch for families and patients at a difficult time by staying with patients or siblings, as needed.

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Saturday Game Day volunteers work in a fun and social environment while interacting with patients and caregivers. In this patient-facing position, volunteers invite patients and family members to play board games in the inpatient areas. Volunteers also serve lunch to the Game Day participants during the activities.

Neighborhood Outreach

The Neighborhood Outreach Impact Committee provides volunteer opportunities to connect with the Houston community through outreach.

CPR

Volunteers teach basic lifesaving skills to the general public and healthcare professionals throughout the Houston community. This course covers adult, child and infant CPR, as well as basic life support, and is currently offered at three locations – Chapelwood United Methodist Church, St. Luke’s United Methodist Church and the Junior League of Houston. It is one of the only free cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training courses in Houston.

Done In A Day

This project enables the League to assist community agencies that do not have a need for League volunteers on an ongoing basis but may have a need to staff a one or two-day special event or have a one-time need for extra volunteers. Volunteers work in a variety of short-term assignments with many different community agencies. Agencies may request volunteers by submitting the online form.

Dress for Success Houston

Volunteers assist job-ready women in their selection of interview attire and provide interview preparation counseling to help the women thrive in work and life. Volunteers also participate in an evening program, Dress for Success Houston’s Professional Women’s Group, providing guidance and support to the agency’s clients.

Houston Food Bank

Volunteers assist the Houston Food Bank by sorting food donations and preparing pallets for distribution to food pantries. Volunteers also help put together boxes of food for the elderly, disadvantaged and disaster victims.

Pawsitive Pals – Houston SPCA

Volunteers bring comfort and companionship to residents in local retirement communities by visiting with Houston SPCA companion animals.

Project C.U.R.E.

Volunteers will help sort, pack and prepare up to $1 – 2 million in medical supplies each month for doctors and nurses to treat disease, deliver vaccines, perform life-changing surgeries and ensure safe childbirth in developing countries.

Sing Along With Seniors (SAWS)

Volunteers entertain residents of senior living facilities and day centers through musical performances, sing-along shows, dance routines and fellowship. Volunteers prepare and present three themed shows each year in the fall, winter and spring.

VIEW (Volunteers In Evening Workshop)

Volunteers meet on a weekly basis to design and construct various handcrafted items that are distributed to a number of agencies, schools and hospitals with which the League is involved.

Contact

Getting Results in the Community

This year, the League will contribute approximately $2 million in volunteer time and direct financial support to the Houston community. The League provides trained volunteers and funding to 36 community projects. In addition, the League’s community outreach efforts include Community Assistance Grants, Emergency and Resource Contingency Grants, Community Collaborations and Outside Board Representatives. Further, the League’s extensive training and education program cultivates a lifetime of civic service, preparing members to serve as agents of change in the Houston community well beyond their active membership years.

The Junior League of Houston, Inc.

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